Consultancy

Drawing on our extensive strategic and technical expertise, Cetis offers consultancy and services in many key areas of educational technology implementation, enhancement and innovation. Please talk to us if you require input, advice or services in any of the areas outlined below.

Strategic Advice for Institutions and Organisations

We provide strategic advice and guidance on technology direction, planning, implementation and innovation to a wide range of organisations including; small to medium enterprises, large businesses, educational institutions, publishers, sector wide national policy bodies and national and international standards bodies. See for example the report for HEDIIP on a new subject coding scheme.

We have also undertaken a number of strategic reviews of VLE and MIS system provision for both individual institutions and consortia. We offer:

Stakeholder consultation and requirements gathering

Synthesis of requirements

Technical modelling of alternative solutions

Recommendations for future architecture, process and systems

In the standards domain Cetis offers a flexible range of services to help ensure that projects are specified and suppliers selected to make best use of open standards and to be consistent with UK Government policy and strategy.

We can offer;

Analysis of current aspects of technology adoption and advice on their potential impact;

Stakeholder evaluation and consultation

Expertise in Open Education and Open Educational Resources strategy, policy and implementation;

Advice on technical approaches for publication of open data to four or five star rating;

Drafting of project specifications to be in line with Open Standards Principles;

Evaluation of technical options for open standards against the criteria adopted by the Open Standards Board;

The production of briefings, reports, and technical specifications matched to readers with policy, management, technical, or front-line roles.

Standards Development and Representation

We believe that by adopting open standards organisations can become more efficient and more flexible to the specific needs of learners and teachers. Cetis plays an instrumental role in the development of a wide range of educational technology standards, for assessment, content description and aggregation, eBooks, e-portfolios, infrastructure (enterprise) and connecting systems (LTI).

We have an international reputation and proven track record of representing the interests of the UK education sector on a wide range of standards bodies including BSI, IMS, CEN, ISO, W3C. We make sure that the specifications developed by these agencies meet the needs of universities and colleges in the UK.

Interoperability Testing

Standards go a long way to ensuring that software and applications can work together. However conformance to a standard does not necessarily guarantee interoperability. Our experience in interoperability testing helps developers to ensure that their applications can interoperate on a practical level. By bringing developer communities together to test the functional interoperability of systems and applications it is possible to establish common implementation guidelines and leverage considerable benefits for the sector.

Practical interoperability testing events also provide an opportunity to identify inconsistencies and ambiguities in published standards, which can be fed back to the appropriate maintenance body to be rectified in subsequent releases. In this way Cetis can provide developers with a channel to contribute to the specification development process.

We offer:

Design and delivery of “Hack Days” to engage developers, front-line staff and designers in prototyping creative approaches to exchanging, combining and presenting data.

Design and delivery of events to demonstrate the practical interoperability of supplier technical solutions, either as part of a selection process or as a basis of acceptance and sign-off.

Future Trends and Horizon Scanning

Cetis staff are constantly monitoring and exploring the emergence of new and innovative technologies, and critically evaluating the potential opportunities they may bring to the education and training sectors. We are uniquely placed to provide informed insights into specific scenarios and technologies for organisations and institutions through topical briefings, structured analysis such as horizon scans, and facilitated stakeholder events.

We can offer:

Design and delivery of scenario planning events to gather stakeholder opinions around future technology trends and their impact on the education domain.

The Way We Work

Cetis staff are responsive, flexible, and used to working to tight deadlines. We have a reputation for synthesizing and communicating complex technical information in a clear and concise way.

Our Clients and Partners include:

Cetis is recognised internationally as an invaluable centre of expertise. As universities struggle to address the very real challenges confronting them, Cetis will be an essential source of guidance and support.Mark Stiles, Professor of e-Learning, Staffordshire University